11 June 2007

Woo! Right Off!

BRIGHTON, England (AP) - With strategically placed helmets and slogans painted on bare skin, scores of people shed their clothes and rode through this seaside resort on their bicycles Saturday to promote cycling as an environmentally friendly mode of transport.

"It is time more motorists stripped off their armor plating and moved around more gently on this earth," said Duncan Blinkhorn, 45, one of the event's organizers.

More than 200 cyclists in various stages of undress took part in the World Naked Bike Ride in Brighton and Hove, sister cities on the southern coast of England, to promote cycling.

Cyclists met with police chiefs ahead of the seven-mile ride to seek their advice about avoiding problems or formal complaints about the nudity.

"This is a fun, if outrageous, way to make the serious point that we should not have to tolerate roads, cities and a planet dominated by the brutishness of cars that routinely foul the air we all breathe, destroy lives and impoverish the environment," Blinkhorn said.

"Bikes and naked bodies harm nobody. Car fumes and accidents kill tens of thousands every year in the UK alone and are driving us all to climate chaos."

Similar events took place Friday in the cities of Manchester, York and Southhampton, and were expected in other countries, too.

If you feel like you need to express yourself and get the message across about living a less-impactful lifestyle on two (or three or four human-powered) wheels, there are different ways to get involved that don't involve nudity! The next Critical Mass ride in Calgary takes place on Friday, June 29th at 5:30pm at the Eau Claire Festival Market plaza.